So I've been doing a bit of Hitman 2 and it's been really good so far with suitably grand levels. Building one around a motorsport event is brilliant (and I was very happy when I was mooching around the car park and spotted a guy dressed as a flamingo mascot - I'll be having that, chum") and while the Colombia level doesn't feel like the great big Rube Goldberg machine for the three targets the new Hitman games have gotten me used to I still have to admire the scale of the thing.
I still fancy running through the series once I eventually pick up 3. One after the other, winging it in a single session. At present I'm back playing Sekiro. Oddly doing alright with it despite the time away. I keep thinking about getting the trophies but it's a lot of faff to get the super cryptic ending I've missed.
BOTW 2
I keep thinking about buying a Switch, then I have a good old lol to myself at the idea of spending £50 on video games as anything other than exception and bin that idea for another month or two.
Mine has not been used in over a year. Will dust it off for Mario Golf in a few weeks though.
In the years I've had it, I've only bought Mario 3D Allstars, Odyssey and Breath of the Wild for it. I'm never going to treat a Nintendo console as a main option but it's nice to catch up on the stuff I've missed from being a Playstation kid. I'll be after that Monkey Ball collection and Metroid Dread.
In other news, after a second failed attempt to get into Bioshock I watched a Let's Play of it and enjoyed that. I think the reasons I maybe didn't get on with it as well as the combat just not really doing it for me I think maybe the story being entirely delivered by audio logs, as much as I dig that stuff, perhaps left me a little cold. Lol at that final boss.
Once I've done an initial runthrough of Hitman 2's levels I won't want to go straight back in and properly pull them to bits so I might have a crack at Bioshock 2 and see if I get on with that all. I gather the story is pretty pants but the combat is much better. I also have the collection on Steam anyway so I feel like I may as well at least give each of the games a try.
The story is very much, "Erm... I guess we need a Ryan surrogate." but the weaponry and tactics of combat is better. If I remember the Big Sisters are genuinely threatening.
Yeah after I finished the Let's Play of the first I went back and read the RPS review of BS2 and it reads very much like they retread a bunch of the same beats but also pretend the character/characters were somehow integral to what was going on in the original despite them clearly being new creations.
I'll go in with expectations suitably low, if I don't like it I'll watch the same channel's LP of it and then give Infinite a bash.
Last edited by Ian; 16-06-2021 at 08:32 AM.
It's got a barbershop quartet in it, so there's that at least
I must have tried to get into Bioshock three or four times, now.
It just doesn't click for me, and the thought of doing the first thirty-minutes or so of the first one, again, makes my soul weep, so I won't be going back. I tried the second one, once, and found that to be even worse. I finished Infinite, though. Thought that was decent.
It just feels awful. It's very 6/10 with a good story attached.
I've been playing Star Renegades. It's beautiful.
That is very pretty indeed.
Been playing It Takes Two with my other half. Wasn’t ready for it to turn into a dungeon crawler for a level. Was great!
I like the look of that. It's nice to see a game properly designed around having two people going through a campaign together rather a single player another person can just drop into.
I’d really recommend it, it’s been so much fun, each level is different too.
The two characters are a bit annoying at times but that’s part of the story.
Finished Disco Elysium.
Good shit. I'll go through it again at some point, now that I have a better grasp on it all, and as a different character build.
Worst thing about it is easily the bloody loading times on PS4. Going back and forth talking to Klassje or the harbour bloke is a ballache, with multiple loading screens to get through for each one. The ones where you're loading a tiny room and clicking on one door to bring on another loading screen can get to fuck.
Still slowly making my way thorugh AC: Valhalla, too. Maybe I'm playing it too soon after Odyssey and Origins, but it's really not pulling me in the way those two did. I think it might be the settlement stuff, mostly.
Thinking of finally playing Grim Fandango. I've always had it on my list, but have never got around to it. I guess I've been too busy. Since 1998.
Yeah for a relatively confined area it can be a pig to get to some places. I think the fast travel needed a) a few more options and b) to always actually work.
Some PS5's were released here yesterday and managed to snag one
By the time I had placed the order, they were all out. Coming tonight.
That said - I still need to finish the whole ME: legendary edition on my PS4 so probably will be a little while before I fire it up. Maybe.
I'm toying with the idea of trading a PS4 in to take the edge off Cex's prices. Unfortunately, they're only giving £80 for a slim PS4. I need to bite sooner or later otherwise I'll miss out on some review copies.
You should’ve bought that one off me for £500. I ended up selling it to CeX for £550, for them to sell for £730.
I'm a twit
I can't believe how hard it is to get one of these next gen consoles still. I've been tracking them across multiple retailers for months and not had a single shot at buying one
I got a Series X within 24 hours of joining the Stock Informer Discord: https://discord.gg/eSeFKv9pp2Originally Posted by Raoul Duke
I'm a twit
Does it cover the Netherlands?
Randomly checked one of the sites and they had the Series X in stock so ordered and it'll be here tomorrow
Last edited by Raoul Duke; 18-06-2021 at 01:23 PM.
Why bother getting a Series X, all the games will be on PC anyway. PS5 is the only console worth buying now imo.
My plan is to go into GAME tomorrow and ask them if they get much stock in. If possible, I want my name on a list when they come in. I suspect all the stock goes online, though. Y'know, where the scalpers live.
I've had the stock informer discord on my list of servers since the original batch or pre-orders went up. Managed to snag a PS5 on the next(and turns out final) wave. Got it for the day after release date(thanks Yodel).
I've been checking since out of interest and the PS5 is by far the hardest to get ahold of. The Series S seemingly is readily available and the X actually gets a decent amount of stock in.
I'd be surprised unless you know a guy who works there if they will put your name down. Tends to be first come, first served for all of these and it's 99% online.
Yeah, they'd do it for pre-orders but I'd imagine not for something already out.
Multiple reasons, mainly cost and not having to have a PC in my living room.
And I wouldn’t have a PS5 visible in my house even if Sony paid me £5 a month. One of the ugliest devices I’ve ever seen.
I'm a twit
I don't have a PC and want to play the upcoming Bethesda games
Went into my closest GAME today and they told me they've got stock coming in at the end of next week. If I miss out, they can put me on a waiting list.
Do you get much use out of your PS1?
No, it is just there for the nerdgasms.
Spent the day setting up my Xbox and downloading a load of stuff on GamePass. Spent some time on Jedi Fallen Order which is pretty cool and looks great. They've nailed the Star Wars-ness of it really well.
Made a start on Bioshock 2 and enjoying it so far. The story is a bit unimaginative and revisionist but the combat is significantly slicker and it's fun having a big fuckoff drill.
Ratchet and Clank's a bit good. I sacked Sekiro off again as soon as the mid-game slump hit. I genuinely might get my copy traded in.
Last edited by Shindig; 23-06-2021 at 06:21 PM.
Finished ME:1. The final verdict is.... ok. The story is compelling enough and the general world-building really good, but the whole thing, even if remastered, just lacks in execution which I basically attribute too it being old. Everything is a bit same-ish, and you grow tired of the combat a bit since killing geth really doesn't provide much variation, and your different skills you have don't seem to really be of much use anyway (other than decryption for opening boxes). By the end of it though, I really didn't feel like I had 'explored a galaxy' which I think was a shame.
Sheperd is a very square central character, but it's still better than most other Bioware character designs given he has an identity from the start (seriously, aren't all the best RPGs the ones where your character is in fact NOT a blank slate)?.
Will still play the others. Does anyone know if I can port the save from my PS4 to my PS5?
But - in the meantime I'm playing FFVII REMAKE ands DAMN am I enjoying it. This is really a showcase of how you can build on storytelling with newer technology. And the way they have managed to respect the old game while not letting the storytelling suffer is impressing.
It's small things like how Cloud reacts by sort of half-shrugging when he can't interact with something (a motion you just know from the original) to how Heideggers laugh sounds (you can really picture the developers going 'ok, how do we make this guy actually sound like what "GYA HA HA HA" looks like.').
The battles do get a little bit chaotic. It's still a lot of fun, but it takes away some of the strategic touches that were there in the classic ATB setup. This is probably more fun all things considered though.
I hope they remake all FF games from 6 to 12 this way
Choosing Manshep over Femshep.
Inherited a PC from my brother in law. It has a GTX 960 in it. Superhot didn't crash this time. It opens the door of picking up Flight Simulator, if I can be arsed.
https://www.thegamer.com/sniper-ghos...b-middle-east/
This whole thing passed me. Top work, press people.
Got to that because Walker wrote about a COD2 one on Kotaku: https://kotaku.com/why-video-game-pr...ong-1847165294
I'd love one of those events under my belt. We did get an invite to one in a castle (although it might've been a Medieval Times type thing) but it was too short notice. And an E3. Whatever an E3 is these days.
Got this yesterday, the track and field events are the old favourites but I'm surprised by how many others are in there too, got a 9.6 for the 100m which was pretty special until you see the online leaderboards and someone in Asia is hitting a low 6s sprint. Dickheads.
I've had the PS5 for over half a year now and have still yet to buy a dedicated PS5 game
Next thing I've learned today is that the final boss music for Sonic Rush features a sample of a Malcolm X quote, because of course it does.
https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Wrapped_in_Black
Most of the Sonic 3 soundtrack is written by Michael Jackson.
Ice Cap Zone is this.
After the Jetzons breakup, keyboardist Brad Buxer worked with Mathew Wilder, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson, and Stevie Wonder, and was musical director for Michael Jackson for over 18 years.There's also the weirdness around his Simpsons cameo where he got a stand-in to sing for him.Around this time, the first child sexual abuse allegations against Jackson emerged. Buxer said the team received no instruction to halt work, and that the finished soundtrack was sent to Sega in mid-1993.[39] According to Hector, Jackson's involvement was terminated following the allegations;[39] his music had already been implemented and had to be quickly reworked by Howard Drossin.[22] Drossin told the Huffington Post that he had expected to collaborate with Jackson, but that this changed when the allegations arose.[39] Sonic co-creator Naoto Ohshima said Jackson recorded an a cappella demo tape for the game, but that Sega was unable to use the compositions due the allegations.[37]:301 He added that Sega probably still had the demo tape.[40]
Did the first couple of hours of It Takes Two yesterday and it's off to a good start, though the tone is a bit weird. Like at a glance you'd definitely say it's designed to include a younger audience but even aside from the fact that it's a story about a child being distraught over her parents divorcing, but you get these really weird tonal shifts from the zany talking book telling you you just need to COOPERATE TO WIN!!!! and then the next moment you're having a sentient hoover suck its own eyes out as it begs for forgiveness. Which is surprisingly horrifying despite there being no gore. Then you rumble on and meet some squirrels who are definitely committing war crimes in their war against wasps and chuckle nervously about it when you find out. The co-op is genuinely very good though with everything geared around that, there's nothing that I've noticed you could just brute force on your own.
I'm also still playing Bioshock 2 and enjoying it. Not much new to add to my previous comments though I will say that the weapons all feel pretty solid (I just got the spear gun but I'm all about the drill, I've already made it stupidly powerful against normal enemies and it's getting there against beefier ones too) and I do quite enjoy the moments when you're going to set down a little sister to gather some Adam, as you weigh up where you think Splicers are liable to come from, what traps you can set, chokepoints, etc. and just getting yourself into the Big Daddy mindset of protecting the little horror-child at all costs. I also really don't feel like they needed to soft-recon the first game and make it sound like Lamb was this big important character before / during the first game, there are other ways they could have done that I think while largely keeping the story as it is.
Last edited by Ian; 28-06-2021 at 07:49 AM.
Yep. They could've ended the first game on the Atlas reveal and then had him as the villain for 2. Gives you a chance to change Rapture into a 50's crime palace instead of the Randian clusterfuck.
I'm reviewing another visual novel. It's about vampires and it seems to be written by a hipster paedo. "Let's have the country called "Amouricane! It sounds like America but French! America will also be in this universe because I've heard it's cool." All the characters have poncey names like Lux Appolon or Jeanne Juanquaxaqetal. And it begins with a disclaimer "ALL CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY ARE OVER 18. In the first scene there is effectively a date rape. But we're supposed to sympathise with the characters because the victim got murdered on the same night. They don't want to be framed for a crime they didn't commit, do they!?
You could even just change it so Lamb isn't this pivotal figure who somehow goes unmentioned the first time. I don't hate the idea of the story, just have her be a relatively minor character (have a throwaway comment in a Ryan audiolog if you want) who seizes her opportunity after Rapture's fall / Ryan's death. Just a bit of a weird choice.
One other Bioshock 2 comment: the maps remain horrible.
"And with that bit of housekeeping out of the way, let's get on with the nonceing."
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